Jacques, Brian - Redwall 07 - The Bellmaker by The Bellmaker

Author:The Bellmaker
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

20

Late that night Joseph took delivery of the broken foremast from a squad of toads who had lugged it back from the marshes to the Pearl Queen. Finnbarr had rigged a block and tackle to haul it aboard, and Joseph, Rosie and some others stood by with rope lashings, metal pins, wooden splints, and spars to fix the mast firm when it was hoisted. Durry and Rufe helped the Guosim to patch the hole in the forard lockerthe shrews were expert boat repairers and worked well under Log-a-Logs direction. With melted pitch, rope caulking, and planks, they soon had the gap sealed and the hull seaworthy again.

A fire had been built farther along the shore. Patch tended it carefully until it was reduced to glowing embers. Countless fireflies, trapped inside lanterns, glimmered and twinkled as the marshtoads surrounded the nearly extinct fire. Patch hailed the ship. “Ahoy, Pearl Queen, if this fire gets any lower, Glogalog wont be able to do his magic. Youd best fetch him now!

Rosie left the mast repair gang to supervise the loading of the King, together with ten jugs of seaweed grog, onto the framed hammock. Finnbarr nodded to her. “You an* Patch git back aboard sharpish, miz. The tides arisin an waits for nobeast.

Marshtoads moved aside to let the hammock be set down beside the fire. Glogalog grunted as they heaved him out of his comfortable bed. Rosie gave him a swig of seaweed grog; his bulging eyes popped out further as he held it without swallowing. Skipping around the edge of the circle Rosie began singing in a serious baritone voice, a song she had made up for the occasion.

“Stand back and watch this Bulgum toad,

Hes goin to do some magic,

But if young Rufe has taught him wrong,

It could turn out quite tragic.

Get back to the ship now, Patch,

Ill be right behind you,

Glogalog oh please dont sneeze,

Or they will never find you.

Careful when you spit that grog,

Dont stand near the venue,

Or youll end up crispy fried,

On the marshtoad menu!

With a twitch of her ears, Rosie signaled to Glogalog, who spat the grog over the embers, causing a sheet of flame to flare skyward. The marshtoads hopped about croaking with fright and excitement at their Kings magical skill. Glogalog took another swig and, swallowing half, he spat out the rest, causing another upburst of flame.

Rosie took advantage of the jubilant melee to make good her escape.

Smiling foolishly, Glogalog continued to swig great quantities of the lethal seaweed grog. Some he spat at the fire, but for the most part he was happy to guzzle the grog, now that he had a taste for it. Spraying and spitting the stuff at random, he soon had several marshtoads croaking in distress as they hurled wet sand on their smoldering webs and beat out threads of flame racing around their gills.

Pearl Queen righted herself on the incoming tide and bobbed in the water with her keel free of the sand. Joseph watched anxiously as the large rollers started to crash along the tide line, rapidly eating up the land.

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